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Native apps will always work better and be less resource intensive than HTML5 based apps. You will never be able to match native code or get even close. Even Google understands this on mobiles, even though they still use the crappy Java. This is especially important on mobile phones not only for limited CPU and memory and the lack of good GPU, but because battery life is really important and already not that great.

RIM just wants to do this because they don't have the vibrant app economy than Apple and even Microsoft has. They want others to do the work for them.

Im no programmer, but claiming something isnt modern is just a shady way of denigrating something for being well established. Essentially, where one person might say "its stable" or "time tested", youve found a way to turn that into a negative.

Arent latest, greatest fads usually just fads? Arent the most popular programming languages generally decades old (C++, Java)? Isnt one of the most popular languages for embedded devices (C) even older?

Java is basically a resource-sucking abstraction layer. Native code is much more efficient in every way (lower memory footprint, easier execution).
That said, HTML5 isn't a bad choice for certain lightweight tasks. An accomplished developer or team can break down the needed functionality of an app and figure out which functions are best executed on which platform.
Where BB10 has a chance is in the new UI, which will have all kinds of goodies baked in and written in native code. If it works (and there's

All high-level languages above native processor code are abstraction layers that reduce performance. The goal is to reduce the chance of errors and to speed development time, and if a language does that well it can be worth the downsides.

HTML for example is very high level, and pretty poor relative performance compared to native, but it is simple and fast for me to create my own page, and it is unlikely that an error in my code will cause a HCF error in the processor, corrupt the memory stack, result in pri

Just want to point out that Java, C#, NodeJS, Python, etc. offer a very large advantage over lower level languages. That is a bit of isolation from typical issues resulting from poor memory management. It doesn't mean you shouldn't be aware, but allows you to concentrate more on the problem domain, instead of dealing with the ancillary issues of your development platform. Many operations in Java/C# in particular can be as fast as the same operations in C/C++, after JIT it is compiled code.

Beyond all of this, the overhead for Java/C# is typically less than 5-10%, with modern smart phones commonly running Ghz processors, even multi-core, the overhead isn't that big of an issue. The bigger issue is running applications in the background that aren't resource aware, and run blocking operations, or don't offload well. I think that as the developer frameworks for mobile evolve it will be even less of an issue.

Speed is around number 10 on the list of things that matter when choosing a general purpose language...And do not even try the ole BS "b-b-but I work in the game industry and I need the speed". 1) No, you don't; I bet you are lying and 2) write the speed intensive stuff (a tiny fraction of any application) in the lowest level language you can and wrap it in a easy to use high level language.

The same argument holds for any platform. A native app will always be quicker. One of the advantages of web apps in any scenario is the ease of cross platform compatibility. In the mobile world this holds true even more so than on the desktop. If they can push this kind of development (especially with the hardware capabilities of modern phones) it would be great for phone hardware in the long term.

It would be nice, but no one's bitching that their phone isn't fast enough. Native apps are lovely. Browser apps are lovely. What distinguishes Android and iOS is that there's a business model where lots of people get paid.

Watching videos isn't a business model anymore because the data plans are becoming mind-numbingly expensive. So what's left? Store-and-forward content viewing; low data rate interactives, including gaming. RIM has to offer something that's a monetary incentive to 1) carriers 2) developers 3) content providers 4) aggregators and CDNs and 5) all of these on an ongoing basis or no one's going to invest in doing BBx-specific stuff.

Apple has lots of salespeople and financial partners whose employer isn't Apple. So they promote Apple. Not so for RIM.

RIM gives no guarantees of privacy, security, or economy to increase their value from the user's context, either.

Speed isn't an issue, as phones are throttled by data rates that the carriers can support. Instead, things like actual security and real costs are the values.

It would be nice, but no one's bitching that their phone isn't fast enough.

Speed isn't an issue, as phones are throttled by data rates that the carriers can support. Instead, things like actual security and real costs are the values.

But they bitch a bunch about battery life. Program efficiency may not be an issue to the touch and feel of the phone. But they are a huge issue in terms of battery life. The phone's processor spends most of its time in an idle/sleep mode. If it takes more cycles to achieve the same effect, then you're going to see a proportional hit on battery life. Every instruction executed has a cost measured in Coulombs.

Ironically, on BB, Browser apps are far from lovely. The BB native browser is among the worst I've ever tried, and IMHO makes a black mark on WebKit.

HTML sucks for touch screens. HTML apps don't work so well when you don't have a signal where native apps can still run. HTML apps can't tie into system APIs (RIM doesn't like losing the GMail native app because now you lose notifications).

Indeed, there's nothing stopping a vendor from supplying wrappers around native code. The segmentation being that the resulting webapps will only run on the target platform. I could be wrong but I think HTML supplemented with native code was option on webOS too.

Mozilla has gone the standardization route with commonly used tasks (e.g. camera, GPS) in ECMAScript wrapping. It'd be nice for consumers and developers if the smaller players such as BBX, open webOS, Tizen and Mer contibuted to such initiatives. It'

Except that it never had, and never will. Even Flash had better cross-platform compatibility (and better performance).

S-so did Java applets... you know, the ones that JavaScript was meant to hand the heavy lifting off too. Except the TCK prevents "Java" platforms from dropping the deprecated cruft, and making a fast booting, lean and mean web targeted bytecode compliable VM.

Sun & Oracle dropped the ball. They could have been the Web's "App Store" backbone. They have all the functionality, just not the mentality to "be the platform". Oh, we'll have the cross platform web app stores eventually, with a bit of fragment

Yes and the end result is Dalvik.
Oracle, through their lawsuit, are determined to retrofit a resurrected Java ME, with corresponding commercial licensing upon future Android handsets, while preventing application of the Java SE through a 'field of use' clause against embedded uses.
The engineering (lawyerless) part of Sun-Oracle is in the process of sp

I didn't think it was ever supposed to render the same. I thought it was supposed to render in a way that made sense on whatever display the browser was set up for and how the user wanted it.I might want all images suppressed, for instance, or all headings read out by a voice synth.Marking up the text with tags lets the browser treat the document 'intelligently'.

Yet mobile web apps still end up working and looking better than the actual hard-coded apps for the respective platforms. I mentioned this in another post, but it bears repeating. I have an iPhone, and guess what:

- Most apps are total garbage- Apps crash constantly, even all these years later- Unblockable, unstoppable, obnoxious ads (I'm looking at you CNET and IGN with your VIDEOS every other webpage on a CELLPHONE connection--3G, data caps and all)- Most apps are missing about 80% of the desktop/webpage's

Funny thing is, I don't want an app to render the same on every mobile platform. I want an Android app to look like all other Android apps, and an iOS app to look like all other iOS apps. Seeing iPhone-style back button in top left corner in an Android app makes me cringe.

That's one thing I *hate* about programs that use custom toolkits to supply the same look-and-feel across all platforms. They should, to the extent possible, use the native toolkits for widgets, etc.

The problem (one of several) with web apps is that there's yet another layer between the application and the host platform, so one more layer to suck up cpu, one more layer to impose its' own problems and bugs, one more layer to fail, have exploits, or need to be accounted for every time it's updated.

That's a third party framework - similar ones exist for iOS and Android. Phonegap is by far the most popular of those. I don't think I've ever seen any apps that actually use them on any of those platforms (or WP7), though.

Except the fact that I've had a blackberry and an iPhone, and yet the BB shits all over the iPhone in productivity, security, and phone functions and features. The dedicated back button and shortcut keys alone allow me to zip around so fast and efficiently its retarded. Once you get past playing the piano on the iPhone and playing a few games, when you need a *smartphone* to actually do anything, things get a little different.

That said though, I do think you are right. People don't care about having the bes

Honestly, I know a ton of people who liked BB for mail. Everything else pretty much universally sucked. I think MS will keep pushing mobile forever, so it will always be there... Android will continue, even if splintered, and Apple is king of the hill now, so who knows. BB, webOS, maemo, etc will be the also rans here. Which is a shame, as I really feel with a few tweaks to the browser, webOS is the nicest tablet platform I've ever used.

But aren't Facebook pushing the same way with its App Center (http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/facebook-launches-app-center-for-desktop-and-mobile-devices-creates-massive-monetization-possibilities-015531.php) - if that gets some momentum then HTML 5 apps will grow massively, and in (say) 75% of cases the app doesn't have the intensive needs that require native coding.

At the end of the day, would you rather develop one app for all phones thats "okay", rather than an app per ecosystem with lots

Everything nowadays works on an abstraction layer. If it wasn't for that, modern functionality would be impossible; you just can't design modern graphical-based software in assembler. HTML5 is just a higher abstraction layer; the speed depends largely on the efficiency of the translation, but as the rate at which the constructs are converted to entities that can be handled with native code increases, the performance gap narrows.

High speed trading is done in Java because Java is actually fast enough, nowaday

Except the abstraction layer is often incomplete, failing to provide access to features of the hardware. For example, how should a web application access the camera and microphone of the device that the browser is running on (with the user's permission, of course)? Without camera access, for example, there is no way to make a barcode scanner.

And even if each platform gives access to the hardware layer, it's going to be different on each platform.

I thought the difference among a hypothetical Safari camera, a hypothetical Android Browser camera, and a hypothetical BB10 browser camera was something for JavaScript libraries to abstract. Let's make the features available to those libraries first though.

the basis seems to be the nokia web runtime stuff, then there's stuff like phonegap too(which is basically a 3rd party webruntime with support for different platforms).

in case you're wondering if the nokia implementation was ever practical choice for apps.. well.. not really, no. and if you're wondering if it's blatantly obvious that you're using a phonegap sw when you are.. yes it is.

Most apps that use this are crap. People are going crazy over ARG. Except it ends up sucking. In reality and practical use, putting shit all over a photo on the street blows. People would rather glance at a Google Maps picture real quick.

The only use I've seen is what you've mentioned. Taking a picture of a barcode. That-is-it.

Wait, who am I talking to--it's you Tepples. Who comes to every video game comment thread and shills that consoles are better because of local co-op.

The only use I've seen is what you've mentioned. Taking a picture of a barcode. That-is-it.

That and voice and video chat (remember Chatroulette?), or query by speech (remember Goog 411?), or query by recorded music (Shazam).

Man, you picked some great examples to counter with. Chatroulette? Really? Search for south park and chatroulette. Who in their right mind would want that site is beyond me. And Shazam. It illustrates my point perfectly. People whip it out at bars, use it once to show off to their friends (and make themselves look like a douche in the process), and then never use it again.

I'm not arguing that we don't need dedicated programs for certain things/functions or high-performance demanding applications. We do. I s

Much of the time Assembler isn't any better than C or C++. Humans just aren't as good at hitting every optimization, and those hand-tuned optimizations take time that's not available in the current fast-to-market environment. Plus, the more optimized Assembler you have in the codebase the harder it is to port. What are the Java libraries written in?

HTML5 is reasonably well supported by most browsers, including mobile browsers, and the support will improve with time. So if a developer writes something that works on Blackberry, he can host it at a web page and someone on iOS or Android or Windows Phone can just bookmark the page. That's what RIM (and Mozilla's Boot 2 Gecko, and the Tizen project) are trying to achieve. You draw in the developers by telling them that if they develop for your platform, bookmarks let your app work on all of the other

People said the same thing 10 years ago about web applications. The market for native Mac and PC applications is disappearing. You could do Facebook as a client-server application. There's a reason they didn't. You could do Facebook mobile app as a native iOS app. There's a reason they didn't.

Native apps will always work better and be less resource intensive than HTML5 based apps. You will never be able to match native code or get even close. Even Google understands this on mobiles, even though they still use the crappy Java. This is especially important on mobile phones not only for limited CPU and memory and the lack of good GPU, but because battery life is really important and already not that great.

RIM just wants to do this because they don't have the vibrant app economy than Apple and even

So? It's funny that this article was just posted. That past few months I've been thinking the same thing. Regardless of platform, the future is the (mobile) web.

See, I have an iPhone. I used all the apps. You know where I spend most of my time now? Mobile Safari. Why?

- Most apps are total garbage- Apps crash constantly, even all these years later- Unblockable, unstoppable, obnoxious ads (I'm looking at you CNET and IGN with your VIDEOS every other webpage on a CELLPHONE connection--3G, data caps and all)- M

Yep. I've got an unexpensive Android device with a QVGA screen [wikipedia.org]. Native apps are a must with such a resolution because they just fit much better than websites. BTW, how is RIM going to push for HTML5 apps on iOS?

If that's their plan, I'm afraid you can stick a fork on RIM, they're done.

Why would it need to push for HTML5 apps on iOS? iOS already has them - they predate the App Store, and are still supported. If BB can get this working for them, which I doubt since the BB train has long since sailed in the US market, then they might be able to salvage something.

I think they have left it far too late, however, and they've been pushed into irrelevance by iOS and Android.

Integrating functionality of BB10 into car dashboards comes from the fact that most of the OS developers were already working on dashboards in the same building, before RIM bought QNX.

Porche, Audi, BMW, among others have been running QNX for many years, and the software development for the infotainment systems has been done at the QNX head office. They already have the infrastructure and experienced developers to do this, so it only make sense to try to market it when the launch cost is low.

I think you're right. It appears that the tail is now wagging the dog. Six months ago, RIM was a handset maker that happened to be using QNX. It appears that they have now transformed into an OS maker that happens to be making Handsets. Almost as if QNX aquired RIM, not the other way around.

An additional thought: This sort of transformation was the beginning of the end for Palm. (Although it's pretty clear the beginning of the end for RIM was years ago. What we're seeing now is the beginning of the end of the end of RIM.)

An additional thought: This sort of transformation was the beginning of the end for Palm. (Although it's pretty clear the beginning of the end for RIM was years ago. What we're seeing now is the beginning of the end of the end of RIM.)

No, this is more the middle of the end of the end of RIM. It will take a while to drain down all of the money and resources of the company. There is simply too much money to be made in consultancy and management for this to be the end of the end.

for luxury cars it's lexus and acura here with infiniti not so much anymore

Acura? I don't know where you live, but where I live I see a lot more BMW than Acura. And for that matter if you drop the well dressed Camry that poses as a luxury car (Lexus ES series) you see about as many Audis as Lexuses (or whatever the plural form of Lexus is).

Though I do agree that Inifiti is a niche player at best. Nissan never could seem to figure out what they wanted to do with that brand. The only advantage they had was they were the first Japanese luxury brand with a convertible, but it

With HTML5, write an app once and you're done. Currently you must create an app for iOS, Android, BB OS, Win Mobile, etc.

Besides, most popular apps on mobile devices are fetching information from websites anyway. Look at how many websites have apps. What's the point? Why should I load an app on my smartphone to access the same content by actually using the browser? I'm tired of seeing posts on websites like "hey, I can't get to this with my iPhone app". Why deal with keeping apps updated and working. It doesn't make sense.

well, yeah as soon as the mobile html5 device apis come standard, something that has been 5 years in the making.

if your app is just a mobile web site to begin with then those api's don't matter. but then, eh... this isn't really news for those people anyways, like said they can just be a mobile website then.

you really want to know why so many websites have apps? it's part of their social media strategy(tm)(r). the point is to keep reminding the user that you exist, a nifty icon on app menu is exactly that,

Huge issue: biggest chunk of apps moving in mobile markets are games. These games either need as much performance as possible (that can only be achieved with native code) or are forced to use hacks here and there that end up making them depend heavily on browser differences.

Not that this matters much here, I bet BB10 will have some form of support for native apps, and this HTML5 deal is just a way to make it easier on some to develop simple apps.

We will see. The iPhone was initially an web based machine. Much of what has happened since was due to demand of developers. Remember that with the classic mac, Apple ignored developers, and history has shown what happened. WIth the Intel Mac and iOS, Apple has been much more responsive to developers.

The write once run anywhere model is compelling. For suitably powerful machines, Java already provides some level of functionality. HTML 5, which to be fair did not exist when iPhone first came out, loo

I'll give you credit. It was an insightful read. But there are fundamental flaws.

Apple has, in no way shape or form, ever cared about developers or the demand of developers. They still do not, to this day.

The switch to native Apps on the iPhone was due to only 2 reasons:

Lock people in. This is Apple's MO, entire business model. Lock people in to the App Store to make money and keep people from easily switching to another vendor. It's a PITA when you just spent $100 apps. You'll say: "eh, I spent enough, I'l

QNX required commercial licensing whereas Linux was 'free' for Maemo and Android. QNX is regarded by Ã¼ber-nerds as being pretty amazing - e.g. read a few OSNews threads.

RIm might attract a cult following by exposing the full QNX stack to legions of new BBX enthusiasts. e.g. it provides an X11 server with xphoton and a free software repository via NetBSD's pkgsrc. With a bit of polish, Blackberry devices could become self-hosting - plug your blackberry into an HDMI display, attach a keyboard and m

I wish them luck - I always liked QNX (even on my old iOpener, with the pizza button) and I'm all for more variety in the mobile market. Only time will tell, however, and the market seems to be converging moreso than differentiating.

This is only half true. I've worked quite a bit with QNX, and in some ways it's beautiful to develop with, but it's missing some of the useful tools that Linux people are used to.

I actually don't think it's a solid choice for smart phones, and it's because the bottom line at QNX is reliability and maximizing up-time without crashing. Performance is secondary to that. This is why it's popular in car dashboards, nuclear power plants (CANDU), and really big routers, but it's not so popular for personal medi

I think you are under estimating the value of QNX. Frankly reliability for Blackberry users is a big deal. Having a phone that doesn't just reboot or that you have to reboot would be great. The fact that it is a real-time OS could be even more important. With a RTOS it should be possible to keep the performance snappy not matter what. If a task gets too slow or locked up you should have no problem with switching back to the home screen and killing it. The fact that they could make a UI that never bogs down

QNX is the OS of choice for many auto manufacturers for their in dash hardware. Since BB 10 is QNX with a new GUI layer (Kinda reminiscent of another OS X product and its BSD/OpenStep heritage) doesn't that just seem like a logical evolutionary step?

QNX is the OS of choice for many auto manufacturers for their in dash hardware. Since BB 10 is QNX with a new GUI layer (Kinda reminiscent of another OS X product and its BSD/OpenStep heritage) doesn't that just seem like a logical evolutionary step?

If you're positing cell phones as a replacement for automobile dashboards. Otherwise, not so much.

HTML5 is a fatal architectural design mistake for developing anything other than web sites.HTML+CSS+JavaScript is a clunky necessary evil born of the nature of web development - not a desirable development environment.

HTML for mobile will always be slower and clunkier than an platform using C or Obj-C or C++ or even Java.

There is an unfounded myth that by using HTML, a wide audience of developers can be tapped while Apple has proven that the only thing that taps developers is a platform they can make money on - developers will learn whatever they need in order to eat.

Finally, using HTML does not guarantee automatic portability across devices in the same way that Android can't guarantee it across devices - there is a limit to how much hardware variation can be abstracted away and when hardware vendors compete on features there is a very strong force working against portability.

Palm failed because of this mistake, among others, and those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.

WebOS had this model. Now it's gone. Apple had this model until they convinced Jobs to allow native apps. The number of apps soared, and you can see the success of native apps pushing a platform forward. Google even changes some of its webapps to native, for performance, API, and UI reasons.

This smells of coming from a point of weakness (Google is already changing some of its apps from native Blackberry to webapps).

That's not even mentioning that the Blackberry web browser makes me want to stick a fork in

I live in Waterloo, ON and know a lot of people that work for RIM. I constantly tell them my issues with the Black Berry. They turn around and explain the reason it is done that way. There seems to be an arrogance with the engineering base at RIM. It constantly is a "holding it wrong" response when all that means is I buy the device I want. They have not been catering to their user base for a really long time now. Telling me that I want to use html5 when I don't just shows this. When I think about it, it is

The good: the "mobile ecosystem" really does have almost completely negative connotations at this point. It's not that running things locally is bad (sometimes you very much want to do just that), but rather that "ecosystem" became a codeword for screwing people over by trapping them in proprietary dead ends. The NES was an "ecosystem" by the current usage, and that was the epitome of evil next to which, even Microsoft looked like a relatively benign force in the software industry (until the Xbox, that is

If they are depending on their hardware and OS to sell phones, their track record is not good.They may suddenly leapfrog the competition in both those areas, but judging by the bag of crap they foisted on me, it will be one heck of a leap.

To clarify, I found the blackberry feature-poor. It couldn't handle many file formats so I could not do as many things (read gutenberg texts, listen to old mp3 recordings of radio programmes, watch video etc) as the nokia n95 it 'replaced'. And the GPS was shoddy.Email worked. I couldn't see/hear the attachments for the above reasons, but I could get them.And it auto-formatted the sd card when I tried to migrate my data to it. That REALLY annoyed me.Bag of crap. And so was LG Renoir.

I'm curious, which BB did you have? I've had two BB's, my first was the one back in 2007 which was right before the touchpad. Can't remember exactly. But then it could play mp3's and videos. When was yours made? I know it's had mp3 and video capability since then at least. Maybe you needed to convert the format? Maybe years ago it couldn't play QT or WMV? I know it def played MPG. AVI not so sure.

The SD card, don't know much about. I always connected it to my computer to put stuff on. Though gotta give it c

...until developers got angry that they couldn't run native code. However, this might require that apps are only usable online and would prevent useful apps on an iPod Touch like device, not that RIM cares though.

They'll be ensuring their platform is only capable of running the low quality apps that can also run one every other platform. Basically they're relegating themselves to lowest common denominator status.